2:47am
by CyberMorgan
Summary: It's a cold October Sunday. The air is crisp and cool as Meg drinks a raspberry zinger. A small lizard comes up to her side. Paul, she names it. But soon, Meg is gone. She vanishes, no where to be found. The only clue is a missing statue...


She hated tea. It was awful. The taste, or lack of one, made her mouth feel numb and strange. She always regretted taking sips of it. But, because of a combination of her luck and her parents' addiction to coffee, that was the only option. She had chosen "raspberry zinger" over a lemon herbal tea. Surprisingly, the zinger wasn't nearly as putrid as other teas.

"Ahh," Meg said, her small frame a silhouette against the large pale moon. She nuzzled her nose into a cowl wrapped around her neck. Her feet were freezing, though. She should've thought to put on slippers. Meg liked the feeling of the porch under her bare feet, even if it cold. She scrunched her toes and let them relax. Scrunch, relax. Scrunch, relax. It was nice.

Meg's parents were upstairs, sleeping. Not very quietly, as she could hear her father's deep snoring and grunts. Her older brother was also asleep. He slept like a rock. Nothing could wake him up and he was so quiet, even his breathing was undetectable. Meg knew that she slept in the middle. Her breathing sounded like a small whistle and she could easily be woken in times of emergency. She always got a good eight hours, though.

A black lizard with a blue stripe and tiny yellow dots slithered up onto the porch and settled right near Meg's foot. She twitched her toes. The lizard twitched. She moved to the right; he skittered along with her. The lizard was her shadow.

"Hi," Meg whispered. Her tea was becoming lukewarm. Ugh. She set her cup down on the other side of her feet and slowly let all of her weight splay out on the unfinished wood of the porch. The lizard stayed where he was as she lay down around him. "How are you today?" The tea had said it was a zinger. It should have given her the boost that she was so desperately craving. It didn't seem to work, as she stretched her mouth as far as possible in a silent yawn.

The lizard opened its mouth in a copying motion. Meg closed her eyes and listened to the noises of her backyard. The coy pond was bubbling as always, and the neighbors cat had climbed the fence and seemed to be hunting for mice. Meg huddled more protectively around her lizard.

"Meg, don't fall asleep," she said, reminding herself. But it was so comfortable. She could feel the hardness of the wood through her puffy coat and liked the curl her body had made in an effort to protect the lizard from Whiskers.

"You need a name…" The end of her sentence was engulfed in a yawn. "Paul…" she hummed. "Paul McCartney." Once she felt that Paul was satisfied with his newfound name, she let her eyes close again.

_Mroooow!_ Whiskers had seen the lizard. Paul was scurrying towards a crack in the porch.

"Shoo!" Meg said to Whiskers. She ran to Paul and had her hands in a box around him in no time. "It's okay, Paul." Meg picked him up and put him in her pocket. He seemed fine with that. There wasn't a giant cat with an open maw waiting for him there, so it wasn't too far off from being a five star hotel to him.

"Paul, you are okay I'll take you inside, alright?" Meg asked the lizard through her pocket. "I think that I could catch some crickets. You eat those, right? I'll Google it," she hurriedly explained. The cat was prowling at the other end of the porch, glaring at her with its yellow eyes. "Hissssss!" Meg tried to be as cat-like as possible. Whiskers didn't move. "Whatever." She opened the sliding door into her house, and shut it as soon as she could.

The tea sat outside, still half-full. Or half-empty. Meg liked the term half-full. She should've gone to get it, but it was tea. In a Red Solo cup. On the porch. In front of an angry cat.

"I don't care…" mumbled Meg. Paul squirmed in her pocket. She put her finger in alongside him. Small, nibbling teeth soon surrounded the thin finger. It would've hurt had Paul been larger, but with his miniscule size, it was simply adorable.

Her laptop sat on the kitchen counter along with a soaked tea bag. She threw the tea bag into the thrash can and picked up the computer. Meg took it into the living room, where she opened it up and turned the brightness to full blast. Paul tried to run out onto the couch, but Meg caught him and got a bowl. She placed a small dribble of water in it for him and put the green bowl next to her laptop.

_What to feed blue and yellow lizards, _she searched. The first link looked hopeful. It said that the lizards ate mainly bugs. Meg's neighbors had a little boy who loved bug-catching. She would enlist his help.

A long moaning meow suddenly filled the room. Whiskers was sitting on the porch, sipping the tea. Another cat had come up. They looked like they were going to fight. "Stupid cats." Meg hated Whiskers, but she knew she had to prevent a feline felony. "Paul, don't move," she whispered. He froze, as if he understood. She left the room and went back to the kitchen. Meg had been hoping that there would be some slippers lying around, but she didn't see any. Her coat would at least keep her torso warm. Meg's feet were numb from the previous outdoor adventure, but she didn't care. She'd live.

Whiskers faced off with a very fluffy cat. Fluffy hissed and growled. Meg sprang on the door and slid it open in one swift motion. "Maaaaa!" She said. It was more of a noise, really. Whiskers looked up at her and backed away. Fluffy's fur was all on end. "Ugh. Stupid felines. Get away!" She yelled at them to no avail. Finally Fluffy ran off, but Whiskers stayed put. "Gosh. Drink the tea and leave me alone! Go to your own yard!" Meg started to rant. Whiskers didn't seem to mind. HE drank more of her raspberry zinger.

The girl sat down next to the cat and glanced at the outdoor clock above the door. 2:47am. Sunday. October 19. 2013. Her eyes scanned the yard, in search of Fluffy. No fluff of any sort was found. But something was missing. The fairy they had in their backyard was gone. It was a rather small statue. The fairy was wearing a headband of flowers and had an angelic expression as she read her book and sat on a mushroom. Only the mushroom remained_. But the fairy had been attached to the mushroom, _thought Meg. Her eyebrows furrowed together in thought. Before she had the chance to open her eyes, she was gone. Disappeared. At 2:47am on October 19, 2013. Sunday morning. Meg Perkins was gon


End file.
